Hmmm, it's looking considerably less optimistic as I approach 1800. I'll go to Thurs. nite games after all.

I'll attend friends' annual percussion retreat at Ramblewood, the ELC at Sequim Bay State Park this weekend, leaving tomorrow afternoon. There's a good place for nekkid eye & binoc astronomy, down on the dock. Two years ago I believe I could see the flame nebula around Alnitak with binocs. It was a situation where I was under clear skies in the Sequim rain shadow but greater Puget Sound LP-opolis was clouded in, so I enjoyed exceptionally dark skies. Maybe I'll get lucky again!

Hmmm we had the grandkids up for the weekend. THIS time we were ready. More toys than they could imagine donated by my sister who collected Thomas the Train among others. Kids LOVE that stuff. We had several hours of kids lost in play otherwise known as bliss.

So did I, Brad . . . a very little bit. I visited a friend in Silverdale, primarily dinner, music & BS. But he did have his homemade 12.5" cooling in the driveway and we went out to look at Jupiter. Although we were in a fairly bright area (neighbors' lights) the views were still disappointing. I could barely make out bands/zones. We attributed it to poor seeing, which seems counterintuitive with the current weather pattern. How would you rate the seeing last night?

Incidentally, my buddy played hookey from work yesterday because the night before he had driven to Mt. St. Helens. He said he was under low clouds and fog the whole way, until he broke above at around 2000'. The resulting suppression of LP gave him the best skies he's seen in Washington. He worked dirty low-down areas: Sextans, Canis Major. He said he just pulled over into a wide asphalt area along the highway and between 10:30 and 3:30 not a single car passed.

Seeing here was not bad but not great. I could make out the shadow of a moon on Jupiter's face. I could almost see some texture in the bands but not quite for sure. Tonight it is clear up higher and fog bound lower, I bet it would be absolutely dark up on Capitol Peak, or anywhere in the mountains. But I'm not going to venture out in this weather. It is probably warmer up above the fog though, but I bet it's still plenty cold at night.

He doesn't have any secondary heat and frost on his secondary twice became a problem. The first time he removed the upper cage, took it into his p/u to warm, then reassembled, recollimated and went back to business. The second time was quite late, so it was his goodnight signal. He got home to Silverdale around 6:30.